1. Field of the Invention
Aspects of the present invention relate to a connector and an assembly of a cable and the connector (to be referred to as a cable-connector assembly). More particularly, aspects of the present invention relate to a connector including a locking unit, a resilience unit and a guiding unit for a cable, and a cable-connector assembly.
2. Description of the Related Art
A connector used for ultrahigh speed transmission of data/signals is connected to a cable. In general, a board to wire type connector using a coaxial cable is widely used.
The board to wire type connector includes a header mounted on a printed circuit board, and a housing to which a cable is connected. The connecting of the cable to the housing is manually performed. Since the connector includes many parts and is manually assembled, the manufacturing cost of the connector is considerably high, which is undesirable in view of cost effectiveness.
In order to overcome the shortcoming of the cost-ineffective board to wire type connector, a connector electrically connected to a flexible flat cable (to be abbreviated as “FFC” hereinafter) is used.
FIG. 1 is a perspective view illustrating a general connector having a flexible flat cable (FFC) connected thereto. The illustrated connector 10 includes a housing 11 and a plurality of contacts 12 (to be also referred to as “terminals”) fixedly installed in the housing 11. Each of the contacts 12 is made of a conductive material, that is, a metal.
A plurality of conductive patterns are formed on the FFC 20. When the FFC 20 is assembled with the connector 10, the respective conductive patterns of the FFC 20 make contact with the corresponding contacts 12 of the connector 10, thereby electrically connecting the FFC 20 to the connector 10.
Meanwhile, a board or a cable connected to a device (not shown) is electrically connected to the other side of the connector 10, thereby electrically connecting the FFC 20 and the device through the connector 10.
Fitting nails (not shown in FIG. 1) are mounted in longitudinal sections of opposite sides of the housing 11, respectively. The fitting nail reinforces the strength of the housing 11 and mechanically supports the contact 12.
An assembling process of the connector 10 and the FFC 20 will now be briefly described.
A longitudinal section of the FFC 20 is inserted into the housing 11 of the connector 10 to be positioned between two contact pieces of each of the contacts 12 of the connector 10, and an actuator (not shown) installed on the housing 11 of the connector 10 is then actuated to press the longitudinal section of the FFC 20. Therefore, the longitudinal section of the FFC 20, that is, a region where conductive patterns are formed, makes contact with each of the contacts 12 of the connector 10, thereby establishing electrical and mechanical connection between the FFC 20 and the connector 10.
In general, the fitting nail just performs functions of reinforcing the strength of the housing 11 and mechanically supporting the contact 12 but does not perform a function associated with the FFC 20.
In a state in which the actuator presses the longitudinal section of the FFC 20 to allow the region of the FFC 20, where conductive patterns are formed, to make contact with each of the contacts 12 of the connector 10, when an external force is applied to the FFC 20 or the connector 10 in a horizontal direction (i.e., parallel to the FFC 20), a connection between the FFC 20 and each of the contacts 12 of the connector 10 may be easily canceled, so that the electrical and mechanical connection between the FFC 20 and the connector 10 is not maintained.
Meanwhile, there is no constitutional member for guiding the longitudinal section of the FFC 20 to be inserted into the housing 11 of the connector 10. Thus, it is quite difficult to achieve an accurate connection between the connector 10 that is small in size and the FFC 20 that is slim.